Railway hopper cars with one or more hoppers are used for transporting commodities such as dry bulk. For example, hopper cars are frequently used to transport coal, sand, metal ores, ballast, aggregates, grain, and any other type of lading material. Commodities are discharged from openings typically located at or near the bottom of a hopper. Existing systems use a door or gate assembly to open and close discharge openings of a hopper. Existing gate assemblies have limited flow rates which limits how quickly a commodity can be unloaded from a railcar.
Existing gate assemblies typically feature a mechanically operated slide whose travel in the longitudinal centerline of the car dictates the minimum distance apart the gate assemblies may be located. This is considered during the car design, where two sides are traveling towards each other. In addition, historical unloading infrastructure of some locations has dictated the spacing of the gate assemblies, where current day facilities offer a discharge pit in such length as a full car length, providing unloading flexibility options. Thus, it is desirable to provide a discharge system which is not constrained to outdated requirements, takes full advantage of current infrastructure flexibility, and offers improved overall system efficiencies to transport commodities.